Esau was a good hunter, easily able to provide high-quality food to his family, but our Tradition writes him off as violent. Esau preferred being outside and was athletic, yet our Tradition labels him as boorish. He dutifully loved his father, but our text paints him as simple. Though we are taught not to place a stumbling block before the blind, our forefather Jacob - the G-d Wrestler Israel - put a stumbling block before Esau, the hard-working man, and steals his birthright while Esau was tired and hungry after a day in the fields. Jacob then takes advantage of his blind father Isaac and steals Esau's blessing. Esau's anguish and Isaac's pained confusion after realizing what Jacob did breaks my heart. Our forefather Jacob acted in ways that fly in the face of how we should live as Jews. The Torah teaches us to live not only by our ancestors' shining virtues but also by their glaring flaws.
Chayei Sarah is a Torah portion commemorating Sarah's life, her burial in the Cave of Machpelah, and the finding of a wife for Yitzchak in Rivka. It has also marked for some time, an annual gathering in Hebron of many on Israel's far-right, and with anti-Arab sentiments. They taunt the Muslim-Arab residents, demonstrate their dominance over the Cave and the city, and remind them on whose land they live. They gather this weekend because our parashah details how Hebron and the Cave in its fields became ours. Abraham gets the land from the Hittites; we inherit it through Yitzchak, to whom Abraham willed all his possessions. I am troubled by the displays of aggression because they contradict the lesson I find in our reading about what acquiring land means and how to behave once we have it.
The way to the heart is through the stomach, yes. But then we only arrive at the heart. What about entering the heart? We open each other’s hearts by all the other little things we do to make a person feel special when eating our food. Service is a deeply intimate act that is characteristic of Abraham's ability to connect not just to other people but to G-d. Throughout the Torah, such connections are expressed in terms of service – avodah.
